A backup isn’t really a backup unless it can be restored

I've written many times here about Carbonite and how much I love its unlimited online backup storage. I have helped dozens of clients install Carbonite and I myself have Carbonite installed on three of my computers.

But until some unfortunate events occurred recently, I never realized that I was only telling half the story. I had never written about Carbonite's restore capability. Sure, it's great to have everything backed up, but the backup is useless if it can't be restored properly when the need arises.

Ask and you shall receive

The need arose for me when one of my computers crashed and burned. Hard drive, motherboard, the whole nine yards. Overnight it became a hunk of scrap metal to me.

So I replaced it with a new computer and set out to restore all of the files from my Carbonite backup. The process was relatively painless. I just logged into the Carbonite web site, identified which computer I was replacing, installed the software and away it went restoring files.

But somewhere along the line, Carbonite got stuck and stopped restoring files. I tried tinkering for a bit but soon figured my time would be better served getting a straight answer from the Carbonite support team.

Pablo to the rescue

I started with the online chat and was introduced to Pablo. Pablo listened to my explanation of what was happening and agreed that something was not right. He emailed me some instructions that walked me through, step by step, how to send him some log files which he promised to look into.

A few hours after I sent the log files, I heard back from Pablo. He told me that he had determined that the issue was with my Windows Live OneCare software which was preventing the restore process from completing. As I reflected back on what I had done, I remembered re-installing Windows Live OneCare shortly after re-installing Carbonite which was most likely the moment Carbonite got stuck.

Again, I was given step by step instructions on how to configure Windows Live OneCare to allow Carbonite to finish its business. I dutifully followed the instructions and within a few minutes Carbonite resumed the restore process like nothing bad had ever happened.

100% recovery

It took about a day to restore all of the files (I had a large backup set) but in the end, I never lost a single file. I did have one minor issue getting my Outlook data back but had enough technical prowess to work around that one on my own.

All said and done, I can proudly say that I now have experienced the full end-to-end life cycle of Carbonite. And my opinion of Carbonite hasn't changed a bit. Carbonite rocks!